Reported Missing: A gripping psychological thriller with a breath-taking twist

by Sarah Wray

  She writes something down. I imagine she already has all the phone records.

  ‘Right, well…’

  ‘And you didn’t think there was anything unusual about the texts?’

  ‘Not really, no. Do you?’

  ‘Not really or no?’

  ‘No, I didn’t think there was anything unusual about the texts.’

  She looks at me hard, for longer than usual, then cuts away. ‘OK, anything else spring to mind? Anything odd, out of the ordinary? You went to work like usual that day?’

  ‘Yes, everything just seemed normal.’

  ‘And you went to work?’

  That stops me in my tracks.

  ‘No, I was off sick that day. And the day before, remember?’

  ‘Ah-ha that’s right, of course. I do remember now.’

  Detective Fisher doesn’t forget things; she never mixes them up.

  ‘You just stayed in bed then, most of the day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t see a doctor?’

  ‘No, it was just a virus.’

  ‘OK. And did Chris say anything else. Besides that he loved you, of course?’ She gives me a smile like a curtsy after that little dig.

  ‘He just said, you know, ’bye and he’d see me that night.’

  ‘Just a few more questions then we’ll be on our way, but it is important.’

  Lyons is scribbling away. How can they still be writing this down? Don’t they have iPads or recorders or something for this stuff these days?

  ‘And – I’m sorry, I know you have mentioned this – but just to be clear, you say that you didn’t realise your husband had lost his job? He hadn’t told you this?’

  I shake my head. That still stings. ‘I had no idea, honestly. I was still making his sandwiches every day, for Christ’s sake. What a mug, eh?’

  ‘It happens.’ Detective Fisher shrugs. ‘And at the time, were you aware at all of any problems at work he was having? Or personal issues?’

  ‘No. We have been through all of this!’

  Lyons jumps a little, startled. He avoids catching my eye.

  ‘OK, Rebecca – just a couple of other things. You’ll understand that we need to keep looking at things afresh, especially in the light of any new information. And new information is so crucial—’ I open my mouth to speak, but she cuts me off, ‘—whatever the nature of that intelligence may be. We need to revisit the facts of the case in the light of this.’

  I shoot her back a forced ‘of course’ smile.

  ‘So, once more with feeling. We came to see you on...’ She consults her notebook but I can’t help feeling that it’s all show, she knows the lines.

  ‘That was the Monday we came to see you, when we were doing a door to door, wasn’t it? And you hadn’t yet reported that Chris, your husband, was missing. Missing since Friday. Why was that again?’

  They had knocked as I was getting ready for work. When I first saw them, my stomach dropped, afraid that something had happened to Chris. Little did I know what was coming next.

  A few general questions. Had I seen anything? Who else lived there? Where was he now? When had I last seen him? The questions started speeding up, they wanted to come inside. Then one of the officers left the room, made a call. Everything snowballed…

  ‘I told you, I just thought maybe he’d had a few too many with his friends and was sleeping it off somewhere. Maybe he knew he’d be in my bad books so he was delaying coming home.’

  ‘You didn’t ring round friends? See if they’d seen him? Call the hospitals?’

  ‘I did call the hospitals. Check with them – I’m sure you already have.’ I shoot her one of her own false smiles back. ‘I didn’t ring his friends. As I’ve said, I suppose I didn’t want to seem like a nagging wife, suspicious, like I was keeping tabs on him. You know how people are. They never forget about stuff like that and they don’t let you either. Stupid, really.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’ She and Lyons catch each other’s eyes but I can’t read their secret language.

  ‘So, no unexpected stays away from home, late nights, that type of thing?’

  ‘Well, there were a few late nights.’

  ‘Go on, Rebecca.’

  ‘There’s nothing to “go on” about. He’d sometimes go for a pint after football or work or whatever. Doesn’t your husband?’

  She doesn’t answer, but I notice she isn’t wearing a ring.

  ‘Forgive me, Rebecca, but something still doesn’t add up here.’

  This is new. The silence reverberates around the caravan.

  ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me.’ I try to buy myself some time.

  ‘I mean, this is what you told me when we first met. But you’ve had more time to think now, distance. It’s just, your husband, who you say everything’s fine with, doesn’t show up at home for three days and you don’t call us? I’m having problems marrying that with you and everything else you’ve told me.’

  I focus on my breathing. When I am confident my voice is steady, I speak.

  ‘Well, that’s up to you. Maybe it sounds a bit unusual but it’s the way it is. Not illegal, is it?’

  Her face tightens then relaxes again.

  ‘Have it your way. Perhaps we’ll pick it up another time. And think back again, please. Do you remember anything unusual around that time? Anything at all? Please, think hard about the details.’

  I remember the day he went missing – they went missing – as clearly as if it were yesterday, of course, although I didn’t know everything had gone so wrong at the time. At least I think I remember it. But the time leading up to it… I can’t recall the details as precisely as I need to. I have run over them so many times. Have I accidentally embroidered, rearranged, blurred things? It’s all these questions posed in ten different ways that makes it hard to remember clearly.

  I still run it all over and over in my head most days. It used to be all day every day at first. A fingertip search of the field of my memory, our life, looking for new clues. I wince to remember the details of his face, and already sometimes I can’t. I’d looked at it every day for the last twelve years. Sometimes studied it head-on for minutes at a time, yet when I try to summon it now, it often distorts. It blurs and zips just out of view, the details of the features aren’t there.

  Chris had been a bit distracted, though, hadn’t he? Taking his phone everywhere with him. But that could have been just the gambling, I know now. Or it could have been Kayleigh. Everything is skewed through the new lens.

  ‘Everything was just normal. That’s what I don’t get.’

  At least she hasn’t asked me about our sex life this time… yet… like she did in the early days. ‘How were things in that department? I’m sorry but we do have to ask, given the nature of our concerns here.’

  ‘Fine,’ I’d told her. The truth is ‘things in that department’, as she put it, were non-existent over the last year or so. But I was stressed with Mum. I was going to bed early. Visiting Mum every evening and weekend at first, while she adjusted, and to soothe my guilt for putting her in the home. Chris’d stay up late on the computer. He was looking for jobs, he said. Or playing computer games. He couldn’t sleep. It was just something we had to get through; a temporary thing. And it isn’t relevant. I won’t give them that. One more undignified slight on our relationship.

  ‘You OK, Rebecca?’

  I feel the cramp again. The porn on the computer. But so what? It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t.

  ‘Yeah, fine, sorry. Bit of a headache. Not sleeping great.’

  ‘Right, OK. That’s us for today, I think.’ Chirpiness back in her voice. ‘There’s just one other quick thing.’

  ‘I have a question for you, actually,’ I tell her.

  She looks taken aback but quickly rearranges her face into a placid expression. ‘Fire away, by all means.’

  ‘Kayleigh.’

  She flinches again. Barely perceptible but it’s there, a tiny flicker in her face.


  ‘Have you investigated… well, are you investigating the takeaway off the seafront?’

  Lyons’s pen stops writing in the notebook but he leaves the nib on the page.

  ‘You’ll need to elaborate.’

  ‘I heard someone talking... saying that teenage girls hang around there, that there’s dodgy stuff going on.’

  ‘What sort of “dodgy stuff”, Rebecca? Who have you been talking to?’

  ‘No one. I haven’t. I overheard someone. Just on the bus. Chatting about it. I just thought it was worth mentioning.’

  ‘Right, thanks for passing that on.’ She’s shifting to get up and leave.

  ‘It’s Star Pizza, the takeaway they were on about – down Lisle Street?’ I notice she hasn’t asked for the details. Is she discounting the information or does she already know?

  ‘OK, good, thanks.’

  Lyons makes a small scribble.

  ‘And what about Kayleigh’s ex, Adam? Did you talk to him?’

  She lets out a slow breath. ‘Of course we did, Rebecca. We are conducting a serious investigation here, you know. We’re not messing around.’ She is sterner now. The atmosphere between us has stiffened again. ‘I don’t know where all this is coming from, but I can’t say I appreciate the way you are going about things here. It concerns me, if I am honest.’

  ‘Kayleigh. She had some money from somewhere. Adam said he didn’t know where she was getting it from. And that she’d been staying out late at night. Her parents were worried.’

  ‘And you know this how?’

  ‘Never mind that. But have you explored it?’

  ‘Never mind that nothing. Funny you should bring this up now, don’t you think?’ She glances at Lyons. He doesn’t react.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Just seems a bit odd, that’s all. We come with some new information that doesn’t cast Chris in a good light, and boom.’

  ‘I’m just trying to help.’

  ‘Let’s not forget, Rebecca, your husband was withdrawing large lump sums of cash from a joint bank account without your knowledge, was he not? And Kayleigh suddenly had some money from somewhere. I think you should be careful just what accusations you’re throwing around about other people here, don’t you?’

  That’s how it is with Detective Fisher. One minute she’ll be pally with you; the next, she can just slap you right down.

  She relents again. ‘Look, Rebecca. I get that you’re trying to make sense of this and you’re looking for answers, right? I really do. But you need to let us do that – because you could end up adding two and two and getting five. We need to be objective about this, and that’s why you need to leave it to the experts.’

  I feel a flash of rage. ‘But we’re not getting anywhere,’ I say, my voice raised again. ‘That’s the problem! We’re no further forward. Nearly four months.’

  ‘That isn’t true, Rebecca. For obvious reasons you’re not privy to the full investigation.’

  I shake my head. There is no point saying anything else to her.

  She scratches her cheek lightly. She’s standing up and ready to leave now. ‘Before we go—’

  ‘I know about the vigil; I saw that on the news and in the paper too.’

  ‘Right, yes, I thought you would have. Not thinking of going, are you?’ She takes a big glug of the tea, now it’s cooled a little. Forced casual.

  ‘I won’t be going.’ But I don’t know if that’s true. ‘How are they? The family,’ I ask Detective Fisher.

  She tightens. ‘Oh, you know… frantic, exhausted…’

  Generic, she isn’t comfortable talking about it to me, she probably isn’t allowed.

  Fisher inspects her hands. They are plump and dry, her nails uneven, no polish.

  ‘Anyway, we better get off. Still got a few things to do before I finish my shift.’ She cocks her head, gesturing to Lyons to get a move on. As she pulls her coat on, the buttons gape open, exposing a small flash of the chubby white of her torso. She looks round the caravan again and seems to stop for a moment. What is she looking for?

  Lyons has already stepped outside when Detective Fisher turns to me again. ‘Oh, that quick thing I mentioned – stay away from the school, yes? I don’t want to have to come round here with a Harassment Warning. Seriously.’

  I go to answer her, but she cuts me off.

  ‘Let’s not say anything else on the matter, OK? If anything comes to mind, anything at all, think on – you’ve got my number. Use it. Ring me.’

  I can’t tell if she sounds supportive or threatening.

  The Watchers’ video runs through my mind, the sound of the tyres on the gravel, the glare on the man’s glasses. But now it feels as if the one in the trap is me.

  Eighteen

  Thursday, 12 November

  After Detective Fisher leaves, I sit in silence in the caravan. I have to work up my nerve to turn the laptop on, my hands shaking as I load up the Courier website. I hoped I had dreamt her visit, that she’d made a mistake, that the article had been taken down.

  Fresh allegation against missing Chris Harding

  Another local teenager has come forward claiming that missing man Chris Harding had approached her, the Courier has learnt.

  A source close to the police, who did not wish to be named, said that the allegation had recently come to light and would be considered closely in the investigation to find missing 14-year-old Kayleigh Jackson.

  The fresh allegation comes at the same time as further worrying details about Harding’s past emerge. Reports detail how last spring Harding was apparently warned about his conduct with a female pupil – he was working as a secondary school teacher at the time. No further details were available at the time of writing, and the school did not respond to a request for comment.

  Neither Chris Harding nor Kayleigh Jackson has been seen since 17 July. It is not clear if or how their disappearances are connected. Police say they are pursuing multiple lines of enquiry and urging anyone with information to come forward as soon as possible.

  On Sunday, Kayleigh Jackson’s family will hold a vigil on what will be their daughter’s 15th birthday.

  I snap the laptop shut, wincing to think of Chris’s mum, Sandra, reading the story, linking things up in her head. Reluctantly, I pick up my phone and call her back. I can’t put it off any more. She answers within two rings, so has clearly been waiting next to the phone.

  She fires her sentences out at me in one long string; no gaps between the words. ‘Rebecca! Where have you been? What is going on? We saw the article online. Christine, our neighbour, sent it to me. It’s dreadful.’

  ‘Give her a chance, Sand,’ I hear Geoff say in the background, always the calmer one.

  ‘Hi, Sandra. Sorry, I missed your calls. The police have just been over. They’ve confirmed there has been an allegation, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, oh! Geoff!’ She’s getting upset, hysterical already. Can’t blame her really, but I can feel myself closing up, hardening.

  ‘Calm down, love. Please.’

  Geoff’s voice is clearer now. I’m on speakerphone. I can picture them in their chintzy, pristine living room in the semi-detached in Peterborough where Chris grew up. They’ll be crowded round the phone, Sandra perched on the edge of the sofa. Everything cream-coloured, spotless, with framed photos of Chris everywhere. Sandra spends most of the day cleaning and tidying mess that isn’t there. She’s always been ‘a bit bad with her nerves’, Geoff would say in hushed tones. She’s worse now, I’m sure.

  ‘What does it mean, Rebecca? What’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know what it means, Sandra. You’ll have to judge for yourself.’ I sound snappy, voice slightly raised.

  Sandra sobs again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sandra. I’m really sorry. I’m just tired.’ I wish I was in the living room with them. That what I mean to say wouldn’t become warped and harsh between my brain and my mouth.

  ‘I just don
’t understand all this,’ she says again.

  It’s usually me like this, but the more upset Sandra gets, the more detached I feel. Like I’m floating above, watching myself have the conversation.

  Geoff now, more matter-of-fact. ‘Have you had any other information, Rebecca? Did they tell you anything else? Are you alright, love?’ His breathing crackles on the line.

  I feel softer towards them now. I know he’ll have his arm around her shoulder. I sometimes resented them – for the way they interfered in things, always having to have a say on the house and wedding because they put the money in. But they’ve been good to me. They mean a lot to Chris. He missed them, I know he did. Sandra won’t sleep again for weeks. She won’t leave the house. Maybe I recoil because I know I could easily be like Sandra. I’ve been there only recently.

  ‘That’s all they said, Geoff. Same story as always. They can’t tell us anymore.’

  I hear Geoff tut and Sandra whimper. ‘Bloody ridiculous, it is,’ he says.

  ‘I can’t understand it, Rebecca.’ A hoarse Sandra again. ‘I hadn’t seen Chris in a while. He hadn’t visited, had he? He wasn’t ringing like he used to. We thought you might be expecting. That you might be wanting to keep it to yourselves. So he was keeping quiet until you’d had the scans and everything.’

  There’s silence between us on the line. I think she’s still half hoping I will say that’s true, that there’s a baby.

  ‘It can’t be what they’re saying, Rebecca. It can’t. You must know that.’

  ‘I know, Sandra. I haven’t given up.’

  ‘We saw Phil, you know. He was visiting his mum and dad the other weekend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Phil is Chris’s friend from Peterborough. They went to school together. We still used to see him and his wife Rachel in London, but the contact tailed off between me and Rachel when we moved here. I was busy and there just seemed nothing to talk about. Nothing warranting an email, certainly not a call… a Christmas card, perhaps. And anyway, the connection was really between Chris and Phil.